I have been a PC gamer for the past fifteen years. I play a lot of games on my PC in my free time, not only to unwind, but also to satiate the hardcore gamer inside me. Off lately, I have been following many gaming forums and websites which are talking about the downfall of the PC gaming scene because of the increasing piracy of the games. This fact is really disturbing for me as I have been an avid gamer and do not want to lose one of my most passionate hobbies.

The downfall is evident from the fact that most of the popular game titles are being released for the consoles even before they make their appearance on the PC, or even a declaration is made that they will be available for the PC. Popular games like GTA (Grand Theft Auto) which were exclusive for the PC in the past years, are now being launched for the consoles first (take the example of the latest GTA IV which has been already released for PS3 and XBOX360) rather than the PC. The foremost reason would be the falling sales figures of the PC titles and the rapid increase in the piracy of games. And because of this reason, major game publishers are switching to the consoles arena where the piracy element is much less. Although some companies are adopting new methods for game distribution like Valve which sells their titles through their online distributor (Steam) which allows you to download all the game content after you have purchased it online. Some game publishers also use strict copy-protection techniques, but then again, these methods install extra software into your computers and totally kill the experience for the gamers.

So, why do you think people pirate games? Is it because they cannot buy them? I really don’t agree with that because if you can buy fuel for your car every time you want to drive, or buy food when you are hungry, so is the case for buying anything that entertains you. The main reason for piracy is that the PC games are easily available for download from the Internet, P2P networks, Torrents etc. Just think how many times have you downloaded a game and then only played it for a short while before deleting it from your hard drive. I am sure this has happened many times. Would you have done the same if you had bought that game? No, I don’t think so. If you ever decided to buy a popular game title, you would have first made sure that you read all the available reviews on the Internet about that particular game, asked your gamer friends about their experiences, and finally based on those opinions, you would have gone out and purchased the game.

Some people also stick to the rule that if they like a game after pirating it, they go out and buy it from the market to support the publishers. What if you like most part of it and for the small part that you don’t like, you decide not to buy it? How many times have you done that? What i mean to imply here is the fact that such opinions cannot be always unbiased and true. If you want to support the gaming companies only after testing their products for 100% results, you are not playing fair. There are always game demos which you can play and try out these games to your heart’s content.

There is one more reason for the decreased number of people indulging in PC gaming. For playing all the new graphically intensive games on your PC, you need expensive hardware (graphics cards, processors, memory) which you have to upgrade regularly to match the latest games’ requirements, and it doesn’t stop there, you also need to be technically sound to patch your games, upgrade hardware etc. On the other hand, consoles are pretty simple. You buy a console system, pop in the DVD and start playing. That’s all there is to consoles. Personally, I do not prefer playing on a console as nothing beats the total control that I get using a keyboard and a mouse.

I think people who like PC gaming should really stand up and support the game publishers because this is the right time to do so. Or else, you can just keep waiting for quality game titles to be released for the PC and gradually watch the PC gaming industry die.

So, what is your take on this topic? Do let me know through the comments.

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What we need is something similar to the freedom of the Commodore 64 but with today’s graphics and most important of all processing abilities.

Jack Tramiel’s goal was to put computing in the hands of the people and NOT the companies controlling the helm and that helped create the *geek* squads.
Now the word *geek* has been degraded to someone knowing how to change the skin color of a unit in some RTS game and calling themselves an expert programmer!! Programmer my butt!!

Go and read Commodore 64 Visual Basic and then come back and tell me you are an expert programmer!

Commodore 64 was unique because it could be plugged into ANY TV yet was NOT a dedicated game console unlike what most *game* websites tend to say about it since most gaming website journalist grew up on Nintendo or Atari they assume that the Commodore is just another game machine when it isn’t since all they ever played were games.

The Commodore 64 iwasactually what was called a *Micro computer* at the time.
The word PC wasn’t even used yet and what we need is a new *Micro Computer* that can be plugged into any TV but ISN’T a game console meaning you can have it be for both fun and serious use in a module way where you can put you’re own software into it not what the company says you can only do.

Steam Box or whatever it’s called is a step in the right direction to play dedicated Steam Games on you’re TV instead of always using you’re computer but they blew it by making their machine a closed platform which you can only play STEAM titles on it. You can’t run ANY third party software at least that’s the impression I am getting out of Steam’s new console.
They could make flash carts to emulate other machines where the other companies allow them to be sold receiving a profit out of it.

The Commodore 64 was designed in a way that ANYBODY could program it which started the *geek* experience on the PC where they mod games using C++.

Most of the computer geeks today that from the 80s generation or earlier used the Commodore 64 to program at some point in their lives and then migrated over to the PC when the Commodore Plus 4 came out and no support was ever given making Commodore officially dead but some sites are dedicated to keeping the Commodore fanbase going. There are even a few that require HAVING a Commodore 64 using special servers.

The Commodore 64 DID go on the *web* using Q Link or Quantum Link for short.

In Russia the Commodore 64 remained the computer of choice well up to the late 90s and their government used them which now they use a version of Linux. Russia never made the giant *leap* to Windows or even Apple and thank goodness too! They know what freedom smells like!

I know this is old but when searching on Google for a blog about what killed PC gaming this is the first thing and I know what killed it and it’s something nobody else figured out except for the companies themselves.

Computers kept changing a lot and most PC companies couldn’t keep up. If you look around there are hardly any software industry and even the hardware is slowly vanishing where one time you could walk into any store that sold electronics and find both software such as wide variety of *games* and *adult* software such as real estate/marketing/greeting cards.etc.

Heck even stores like Sears and Target sold computers at one point. That’s where we got our Commodore 64 in the 80s was at Target.

The first big change in computing was going from 16 bit processors to 32 bit and then the REAL big killer was the 64 bit computing which nobody made backwards compatibility happen.

Going from 16 to 32 bit made the old cards not work such as Sound Blaster 16 or Awe32 that a lot of games required to play.

Also Microsoft choose to use the Roland Sound Canvas Emulator which was not even Roland’s best as they came out with a NEWER sound chip a year later during the Windows XP period but when Vista came out Microsoft choose to continue to license that one which the Sound Canvas Emulator emulated the SC-55 midi in a NOT very accurate way with a lot of pitch problems and looping issues making the midi sound cheap compared to professional General Midi Soundfonts you can buy.

Roland came out with the SC-88 but Microsoft choose to stick with the older model and it appears as GM.DLS in you’re Win 32 folder.

As a result most musicians chose to go to Mac which was more stable but much more expensive. Mac runs on Linux hardware so basically you are paying premium for a polished version of Linux but at least the updates are cheap only 20$ compared to paying 200$ for each Windows product which is price gouging.

Major gaming and software companies at the time such as BroderBund and Maxis had a real hard time keeping up with all these changes so it allowed companies like Valve and EA to maintain a monopoly in the industry.
Maxis couldn’t keep up and EA games took them over. Maxis had some interesting concepts but by the time they released their spin offs of Sim City everyone went to 32 bit computing and wanted what was new. Not the same old crap.

Maxis being a small company probably couldn’t afford the dramatic changes required to rewrite everything for the THEN newer computers.

BroderBund was able to hang on until the 64 bit computing happened and that made anything past Vista struggle to work at best and anything past XP was not EVEN going to work unless that software was updated with all new drivers.

As a gaming company I can see that being a BIG problem rewriting old software to work on new motherboards that have entirely different addresses and chips and the rise of smartphones causing people to prematurely dump their PC.

When 16 bit to 32 bit happened a lot of the old games would either not run or run too fast such as the original Microsoft Arcade Game Pack would run super fast with no way to slow it down because that was meant for a slow computer.

Most of the adventure games like MYST and imitations of were made in the 32 bit gaming era and the 64 bit computing killed it.

Microsoft used to make TONS of it’s own software that was NOT In App purchases.

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I live in a third world country and all pc games here are pirated. I’ve only seen physical discs here once and that was years ago in a mall hours away from my house. There is no shipping or online retail so ordering isn’t an option.

One of the main reason people pirate in general is compatibility. Old pc’s can’t run new games. And old games aren’t sold anywhere (in america or here). I don’t think steam has added that many older titles either.
I have friends here who still play age of empires II. GTA 1 is still alive and well. (A local school here just got in a lot of trouble with parents for having it installed on every computer in the lab). I was actually introduced to AEII 10 years ago on a school lab computer.

Another reason piracy is so prevalent is the social aspect of gaming. Friends like playing what friends are playing. Downloading one game and distributing it with a flash drive makes it social without having everyone going out and buying it. If I’m raving about a game all my friends will want to try it and I’ll want them to try it. Its much simpler to hand them a flash drive than having them all go out and buy it. Internet black outs and really slow speeds also make this method more practical.

Consoles are winning out because of their universality and dedicated nature. In a sense consoles are computers with extremely simple OS’s. They have very similar components. But consoles are dedicated to gaming. The lack of diversity among consoles makes them much easier to develop for. When you write a pc game you have to make it work on a whole range of screen sizes, processor speed, memory, etc. Hell, you even have to deal with different processor makers (intel and arm). With consoles, you have one set of specs. In a sense this is kinda like Android (highly fragmented and much more price consious and technologically skilled) vs IOs (willing to invest in an expensive console and therefore probably willing to invest in expensive games). I’m not really surprised that game companies are choosing to release games first on dedicated gaming systems (consoles) before other systems.

I will tell you why people pirate. It IS the price of games. Take EA for instance … They sold The Sims for $60 when it first came out, charge you $30 for countless expansions and Stuff Packs that hardly have anything worth a crap and then charge almost $80 on their online store to purchase single neighborhoods.

As long as they keep doing that then I will keep pirating Sorry, not paying hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on a game and most people wouldn’t.

Not to mention that most people who pirate wouldn’t buy the damn game ANYWAY!

That’s not even capitalism! That’s called monopoly and that’s what makes them get away with charging that 60$ there are laws against that called Anti Trust Laws. Microsoft got in trouble and should’ve lost because they were giving away Internet Explorer for free which put other companies out of business. Net Scape and one other I can’t think of then starting charging insane prices for Windows.

It used to

It is illegal to give products away for free because of that issue where you can put companies out of business then charge high rates and lower quality due to lack of competition .

Apple is not really competition because they are closed system where you can only run what Apple tells you to run. Microsoft for a long time at least allowed you to run some one elses software but now with Windows 10 that mentality may change and MS would be just like Apple.

Therefore there really isn’t any *choices* left. All the supposed Indie developers if they want to be successful will have to play by the Corporate pirate rujles if they wish to have backing to succeed and most do have some sort of financial backing.

Thanks Congress for sending our high paying jobs overseas and encouraging *fence hoppers* to come into our country. The reason I say fence hoppers and not Mexicans is because not all illegals are Mexicans. Some could be terrorists hiding with the Mexicans or drug lords who are not afraid to kill people to keep their drug cartels going which I suspect the US Congress has special deals with as long as they keep their backs turned away from the border situation the drug lords will leave the government alone but still bog down the welfare system.

I am from Iran, the country which there is no retailers for any legit copy of games ,only the pirated copies that they get those from piracy. I can’t buy games online too because of banning Iran’s financial transaction with all world now. so I’m asking you guys I have two option to play PC games:
1. to pirate the games and play them.
2. I can’t play any game by those reason I told.

The only reason I download pirate versions of games is because my parents are not willing to pay money for them… they think games are a waste of time and that I should go and play outdoors. When I start making money, I’m gonna do the legit thing — buy them!!!

The only reason why i pirate some games is simple the fact that Australians have to pay almost double what everyone else is paying, FOR THE SAME FREAKING GAME! There is no need to charge us ridiculous prices just because our country is doing better than others.

The reason the majority of people pirate is because the quality of games. So many times have i bought a game for more than $100 and feeling so much regret, that i am shitty with myself for the week. When i am paying at those prices, i expect QUALITY games, not rushed turds. Maybe if it was $50 dollars i would be able to afford my addiction.

For all those people who complain about piracy, it is not all our fault. There has to be major reforms in gaming before i feel safe to take a gamble.

Piracy is a necessary evil, and the gaming industry has to either adapt or perish.

Piracy is an unfortuante drawback of the digital age, but the PC gaming industries reaction to it has been very poor. The reality is that people pirate games for a wide variety of reasons and very few of them have anything to do with “cost” of the game which is something that defenders of anti-piracy measures try to use as ammunition for the fight. Very few people actually pirate to avoid cost, a typical PC game is no more expensive than a dinner and a movie in most parts of the world. The real issue is quality and its an issue the PC gaming industry is responsible for.

The quality of PC games globally is extremely poor. Take a look at any given month of the year on gamespot and see how many of the 10-12 games released get a score better than a 7.0 the reality is that about 1 in 50 games are actually able to score better than 80% in your typical rating scale and about 50% of all games released are virtually unplayable. The PC industry has created their own problem by not adhering to a higher standard of quality. The concept of “if you don’t like it don’t buy it” is also flawed because its not like Im trying a Big Mac here. This is a one time purchase of a unique product and wether I like it or not, its paid for and Im stuck with it. So while cost is not the issue, buying something that is of poor quality and discovering that fact only after a purchase is.

This is why the Free To Play model with microtransactions has become such a phenomenon in the industry. There is no differntiation experiance wise between a free to play game and a pirated game, they are two pee’s in a pod. We try it and if we like it than we consider buying into it. If we don’t like it, we stop playing.

I think if the industry spent as much money on improving the quality of games, creating distribution networks, supporting their games long term and various other methods of giving us a reason to spend money rather than fighting piracy, piracy would be irrelevant.

This is a self created problem. Just look at the reason SimCity. By the youtube videos, disucssion, development bullet points and feature lists this was set to be an amazing game. 2 million people bought it only to find out that on the day of launch nothing works and it would be two weeks before it was even stable enough for you to try. The end result a gamepost score of 5.0!

This is why piracy exists. Spending 49.99 on a 5.0 rated game. Its so painfully obvious.

…say u buy a game for pc and then u find out it runs poorly or u don’t like it… refunds on pc games is a rare thing….with piracy u have the chance to test the product for free and if u like it than u can buy it…no one wants to spend money on something and regret it

Seriously? It’s vermin like you that make me dislike piracy so much. You’re killing the PC gaming industry… Games cost so little on PC distribution services like steam… It’s pathetic to torrent a game that developers have spent so much time on! Publishers just won’t bother developing for PC if people like you continue! ‘A demo’ – seriously… YouTube the game to see if you like it, doesn’t take that many brain cells…

Really? Though I agree that piracy is immoral, most of the games have some sort of bugs that make them unplayable. For example, in Half-life, you can’t play the ending scene, in witcher 2 one can’t defeat the kayran (some can , some can’t), then in Mafia 2, 14th chapter has bugs (in fact mafia 2 is highly buggy). So the developers should refund the money or release a patch in case of buggy software within 3 days of first report of the bug. Taking a month to release a patch is not acceptable. If the developers maintain integrity, only then one can expect the players to the same.

I only pirate games from EA because I have had problems with every single game I’ve bought of theirs, from non-functional DLC to non-fucnctional games themselves and I’ve NEVER had even any support from them as they direct you to their JOKE of a help forum which NEVER gets ANYTHING solved other than non-functional registry edits, this started when….WHEN THEY LAUNCHED ORIGIN 🙂 that absolutley useless piece of software which literally has no use for you if you live in Southern Africa like me as their servers haven’t worked since the 2nd of August 2011, forcing you to have to go out and buy the game, I’ve been blacklisted from my Ultimate Team for complaining about their buggy servers on their site, like REALLY EA? I also had problems with Max Payne 3 from Rockstar firstly as the game refused to start on PC before a patch was made not to mention that my disc came with missing DLL’s so I had to scrounge around the web for these elusive files (Although so many games use Bink) and apply them myself. It was smooth sailing from then on UNTIL my Antivirus blacklisted the DLL’s and the game simply wouldn’t start anymore, after getting no help from the Rockstar support team I was forced to attempt to fix the game myself, when I finally did the game just has Max walk a BIT and then stop as if you’re walking into a wall. Piracy isn’t killing games for me it’s Dev’s who put out games and disappear with your cash when s**t hit’s the fan, offering no help for a product which I paid my money I earned myself selling crack on the Corner ( lol jk I’m still in high school so I just have a small job at the store) so the little money I get goes into clothes and games and it pisses me off when Devs make games that don’t work and Fail to help fix the problem they created, But above this free-to-play games are way worse than a non-functioning game XD

For the record, GTA was not “PC exclusive for the past years” PC got GTA ONCE before console and that was only for 4 months with the first GTA. It’s really annoying that the game was on PC exclusively for 4 months and now all of a sudden it was ” a PC exclusive in the past years”

For the record, GTA was not “PC exclusive for the past years” PC got GTA ONCE before console and that was only for 4 months. It’s really annoying that the game was on PC exclusively for 4 months and now all of a sudden it was ” a PC exclusive in the past years”

I live in India and the fact that we pirate is not because of the price (the price for pc game here is 19$) but lack of retailers.You can hardly find a retailer in India and there is not single store in my state.So the only option for getting a game is by online retailers.And many people do not prefer them.
So for many of us the option piracy stands in the front.I’m not supporting piracy but it really hard to get a legit PC game here .

Bro haven’t u heard of flipkart?? U get most of the games over there. Almost all new games. Also Steam sales are awesome!! But i would understand that some people dont like digital downloads. But buying from flipkart is just like buying from a retail store only thing is that you dont have to physically go over to the store. And you can get the game replaced within 2-3 days if it turns out damaged (which is very rare). And you can pay in cash on delivery if you dont like to give out credit card info. I personally use Steam cuz u get to join a huge community and you get things like achievements and plus i dont have to worry about my disc getting damaged.

After reading all this, I couldn’t help jump into this discussion. Piracy, exists everywhere, not just PC. I think consoles are getting more priority than PC so that they get sold more, the more and better games there the more the consoles sold, despite the benefits of a PC, system-selling is what’s being done. As we are aware that there are many exclusive titles.

I do live in a 3rd world country too and I admit its a shame that I haven’t yet touched an original game disc. Neither do we get the support even if one had access to original game. So that brings to a conclusion that 3rd world countries like mine were never the target for sales/profit and yes piracy exists here. What I think is piracy is hope for people and countries like mine, it is what’s keeping gaming alive even when it never was supposed to exist.

PC gaming will never go down, because PC are cheaper and better and available here, console gamers are very rare compared to PC gamers here. Doesn’t matter whether newer titles hit the shelves or not, classics like Quake or CS or maybe AOE and such will keep it alive, as those games hold high values and replayability than those of today! 🙂

“So, why do you think people pirate games? Is it because they cannot buy them? I really don’t agree with that because if you can buy fuel for your car every time you want to drive, or buy food when you are hungry so is the case for buying anything that entertains you.”

That one little thing that was said was very off course. Buying food, paying the bills and keeping the car filled with gas is stuff that is needed. And by the time you go through the process of buying food, paying bills and keeping the car filled with gas that doesn’t leave much money left to keep buying a $60 game every month or every other month not only that but the cost for everything else you have to buy for that one game to get the full use of it. Not everybody can afford to buy every game they want unless you are rich or still living with parents that makes more many then what they can do with it. Not everyone makes huge amounts of cash and they cannot simply afford to buy a game right away after paying on all the important things. I am not supporting piracy by any means and i buy a game whenever i can but saying if you can afford food and fuel for the car you can afford to buy a game was just plain stupid and words of someone who doesn’t know the first clue about the real world. Not trying to be an ass but seriously bills food and fuel is whole different ball game then investing your entire wallet on material things such as a video game.

To buy a new AAA game in Australia, in some cases you’re looking at $110 (US).
Even when it comes to digital downloads on Steam, Australians are paying nearly twice as much for the same megabytes. As these insane prices can not be justified, how can they expect the consumer not to take the easy option, particularly when I’ve spent these amounts in the passed only to play the game twice. This is true of music as well, although as most of the musicians I listen to are more concerned with creating art than money, and therefore do not have massive following, I always go out and buy the album after listening to it.

The fact is that some kids of today cannot BE BOTHERED to buy them-part laziness-they probably feel ‘why should I pay $40 or more for the latest game’ when they can simply click and download it in minutes. Its too easy for pc users, and supposedly much easier than playing downloaded console games at the moment, which may need modified consoles or equipment. Some will still occasionally buy of course (to be able to own the genuine article rather than a non physical copy) is a must for fans and of course collectors, whether its a game,album or movie. Arguably, as with music, downloading more than they would have ever bought normally, may even branch their interests out to new music,games etc, and make them end up buy products they wouldnt, so the industry doesnt entirely lose out.

As for PC gaming in general, aside from online and offline games (fps shooters in particular), I feel like its being dying for years. There isnt enough variety, and possibly as a result of piracy as well as the size of the market, some developers have even decided to ignore the pc market altogether and focus on consoles, rockstar geing the most obvious (GTA developers). The new generation of consoles all have hard drives, so the pc has tough competition-top of the range consoles are far cheaper than top of the range pcs, and being able to play online and update/modify games officially or not on your console puts it on the same level as any pc-if not better.

It’s so simple actually, If you have enough money to buy a game and you pirate it that is awkward.
But if you simply don”t have enough money to buy all these games you want (Currency people !!! 50$ is a fortune to pay in some countries.)
Then what should you do? Sit there wishing you had that game? Hell no, screw companies and do what you want because a pirate is free…
And please stop talking from your comfy chair.

You really want to hurt the developers who put all their effort into it. Artist, Programmers and other people earn less than half the money made from selling a videogame. Think of paying for the games as a “investment” so your favourite developer can make more games for you.

Their is a large wimpy whole in all of this… lack of research. We are addressing a issue and phenomenon with very little data, but speculation. (at least the author makes this mistake). Instead of guessing why piracy happens, which is basically copyright infringement, not actual stealing as we understand it, we must look at what companies business practices effect piracy in what ways. Ultimately with the understanding that it will never completely and totally be eliminated, just as any other crime. However, how can companies combat this infringement? With data. Does DRM actually stop piracy? Ha Ha Ha. I bet you also think copyright law was also set up to protect artists. Facts are less noble, you’ll find… google it. What companies have very little piracy, I give you a hint one rhymes with malve and another might have the initials of GOG. While these guys are small, their percentages of stolen games is low in comparison. And also their availability of the games and useability with unusably basic DRM would appear to be the correlation. (in fact one has no DRM)

I don’t pirate usually. However the prices of games make it incredibly hard for me to buy a new title on occasion. I always by a game down the road. So I would definitely ask for some discretion in my actions till the game becomes affordable, or you let me buy it from you for 20$ or less.

Well,in some countries,original pc games are hard to,and hell,cannot find a store that sells them.So,in my opinion,pirated games are wrong,but atleast it giving chance to people that doesn’t have any retailer or the one that not have enough money to play it.Especially in asia where you rarely found gamestop and retailers selling it.Conclusion,piracy is wrong but fair.

The PC is bigger now than it has for several years, the reason is Steam that makes it easy for publishers to release their games. Piracy will always be a problem for every platform, the same as the movie industry. Today the PC delivers graphics beyond what this current generation of consoles can do, this reflects in the games like Battlefield 3, Crysis 2 and Skyrim. The PC runs those games in 1080p or higher with a framerate around 60. If you wanted a PC gamer system in the late 90s or the beginning of 2000, you needed around $3000 to make the games run decent, now you can getaway with a desktop PC for around $1000, and that includes 16GB of ram and a SSD disk! Many publisher have PC as a high priority and games publishers like Capcom and Konami coming back and are releasing their games for the format with much improved graphics over the console parts. When it comes to games releases, the PC usually have a later date because it takes longer to produce it with better graphics and physics. You don`t need to upgrade your PC every year like you did in the early days, a new desktop PC will last you at least 3 years before you need to upgrade, and that is absolutely worth the invested $1000. The new PS superslim wil cost you $299 with a 500GB disk, we are talking about soon to be 7 years old hardware, now that is expensive! Even the new Xbox and the PS4 will cost you about $500 when it gets released, and they will certainly not be more powerful that a PC with a Core i7 and a Geforce 660 Graphics card inside. The point is that people know that they get a beast when they are buying a PC, and that Steam has become a big success is thanks to us gamers and publishers that supports the PC platform, long live the PC!

My rig is over two years old now, custom build. I still run all games that release in 1080p with all the graphics options on insane settings. We don’t have to upgrade as much as you would think. Once you got a solid build going on you might need a new graphics card when you do have to upgrade that’s about it. So don’t not get into computers over something so trivial as upgrading.

It’s a pretty sad day when a gamer who use to spend two hundred plus dollars a year in games, no longer feels it necessary to do so any longer because of the inconvenience it brings. Reason I started avoiding steam games was because of this very thing. Had over seven hundred gigs of data it wanted me to backup due to a problem with steam. Couldn’t be solved any other way than to reinstall steam and back up the game data.

So, I uninstalled Steam and everything to do with Steam from my computer. Steam also zips up all the game exe’s and locks them down if you try to open the client without an internet connection, as a security feature. To bypass this feature the user needs to make sure before opening a steam game that the client is set to offline mode or you get locked out of all your games. I have all these games reinstalled on my computer as pirated software now because of these hassles.

Only reason I even still buy into Blizzard games is normally you don’t get hassled when doing so. I spent my whole life supporting the video gaming industry, both as a child, on into my adulthood. People like me feel we have an investment in your companies after such a long time supporting your industry, respecting what you do for a living and not stealing from you. Puting up with your cd keys, online registrations, constant online restrictions and online profile gathering. The game fades into the darkness that is reality and all we have left to do is live with are sorrows.

In conclusion, come up with a way of protecting your customers accounts without alienating all the gamers of the world into avoiding all the online games and just downloading the ones that are piratable.

Sincerely,
Aka (Blizzardwon)

P.S. When I do call your office I am going to ask them to remove me from your system. I might even be mailing you all the games back I have purchased over the years seeing how I no longer even want them anymore.

Personally I think with the birth of steam and other digital distribution platforms as well as the growing Indie scene, that pc gaming is actually on the rise. from what i have read atleast.. PC is supposedly the hottest gaming platform at the moment and as i said it is thanks to the ease of steam like programs.

One reason pirates do what they do is cause of the ease of it all. Why wait to go to a store and spend your hard earned money on a game that might end up not being worth that cash. why do all that when you can have that game downloaded and cracked within a few hours, under most circumstances. Now I am not going to lie… I do download games and use Utorrent and have cracked my share of games. HOWEVER before you all throw me to the wolves let me explain..

With the way the rating systems are now and the amount of crap games that get pumped out constantly.. I tend to use piracy as a means to and end.. What I am saying is piracy for me is like a demo. for example. I recently pirated Kingdoms of amalur to try it out, several days later I picked up the game off steam for the full purchase price.. I don’t mind spending my earnings on games but in my mind I have no desire to purchase ANY game without first being able to give it a whirl..

the reasons for this is as I said ALOT of games these days arent worth your money in the first place and the rating sites are busted now as they seem to give crummy games (short AAA titles that were developed in 6 months and forced out way to early to make as much money as possible) awesome ratings.

Too many times I have bought a game and been so extremely disappointed in the purchase, this is all because game developers who dont give a demo and retailers who dont offer any sort of exchange once its been purchased. I mean hell even if they offered a 24 hour return policy that would be a good enough period of time to see if its actually a game you want to own. since they don’t offer these services I turn to piracy because I hate this incessent guessing game they force upon us.

The worst part is that these games that arent worth your money count on this fact. they know that theyr game is not worth $60 so they hype it up and hope alot of people will go out and grab it the first day. Then you are stuck with it and they isn’t much you can do.. then a month later the game is 20 bucks in a bin because nobody liked it.

If game developers were all like the good ones out there (bethesda blizz ect) and relyed on theyr excellent games instead of cheap parlor tricks and money grabs this would not be such a huge problem. So keep in mind its not all the fault of the pirates but also that of the gaming industry as a whole.

So in short I do pirate games from time to time but I buy those which I choose to commit to and play and are worth the price I pay for them.. I have just been burned FAR to many times by lazy attempts at games that have ripped me off for 60 some odd dollars. I think that everyone should be given a chance to decide weather their purchase is the right one or not personally.. Ive had enough of this guessing game and thats why I almost always Pirate first and buy after if the game is worth the investment.

And yes people will say oh but its wrong even to do that or if you like the looks of a game you should just buy it and they will say alot of things BUT. I personally believe that I am the one being pirated… for my money when somthing like this happens and there needs to be more transparency from developers and more liniency from stores. only problem is we have screwed ourselves out of it to a certain extent… what I mean si that a few bad apples spoil the whole bushle.. the reason they dont offer even a 24 hour return option is ofcourse because some a holes will use that window to take the game home and dump it on their computer and pirate it that way.. so what the hell are we to do.. its ither get ripped off or rip somone off yourself. when it boils down to it everyone looks out for themselves first.. so it will just keep going in this downward spiral.

but hey. for my fellow pirates out there.. try to support those whos games you enjoy, or they may very well stop making them!

Sorry but Until EVERYONE stops pirating and that everyone includes you then these companies will continue to do what they do because they are controlled by rich bankers who only care about making profit and see only dollar signs in their eyes.

They may read a headline or two and only that so if a headline says *sales loss caused by piracy?* click her to read more! They won’t do the click here part and instead assume that all computer pirates are evil instead of investigating WHY people like you are pirating who are disgusted at the trend.

This is basically the chaos tail loop theory keeping the bad situation in place causing the negative feedback loop to re enforce itself.

What has killed PC gaming for me is internet activation/Steam-only/constant connection. Why go to a store to buy a game if what I’m getting is a disc that just connects to a website and downloads the whole game again, then stays connected to the internet the whole time I’m playing a local, single player game? The only new PC games I’ve purchased in the last 6 years have been gold editions that use SecuROM protection (yes, it’s irritating, but at least it doesn’t have to be online and the disc will work for the foreseeable future) or online download games that come with optional discs (Tell Tale Games, I download the episodes as they come out and they mail me a disc at the end of the season). I refuse to support a system where I buy intangible games. I want a disc so that my investment is secured by me and not a server. And so I can sell the game in the future if need be.

I think one of the main reasons for the shift to all this uber security was not piracy, but the game industry’s anger with resale of used PC games. I used to buy a lot of high end titles from EB Games that were $5-$10 used. The game companies don’t see any profit from a resold game, though, so they started trying to restrict the way gamers could use the software they legally purchased. They’ve just about got it locked down so that you can’t buy a new or used PC game at a store anymore. Unless it’s made by Blizzard. There’s always a large separated section where you can still pay $20-30 for Diablo II Battlechest edition if you haven’t picked it up in the last 10 years.

Another thing is that game companies have stopped making really unique titles. When I was a teenager in the mid-90s, the graphics were worse, but in many cases the stories and game mechanics were better. Companies took chances, they threw everything at us they could think of, and a lot of it was great. Now it’s a steady stream of FPS games, a new sports title every year, and the companies like EA and Activision come right out and tell you they need franchises that they can build sequels around to make more money. I will not weep a single tear for a video game company. The big guys make billions of dollars, fire half the staff and close down offices at a moment’s notice, insure the job is not fun for their employees, overwork them with threats of firing if they complain about not being paid for it, and they brag about creating a general feeling of fear amongst the staff. As much as I enjoy games, I kind of wish the PC game industry would fail with that kind of attitude. Maybe then small developers and individual programmers with neat ideas could rise back to the top like they did in the 80s and early 90s.

In short, no piracy is not killing the PC game industry. As long as there have been commercial PC games, there has been piracy. The industry just got bigger and bigger inspite of it. Copy protection schemes aren’t keeping people from cracking games, but it certainly makes it hard for the average person to buy, install, and use new software, or dare attempt to sell it when they’re through with it. Is it any wonder that gamers would rather buy a PS3 or Xbox 360 version of a game, which they can just slip into the drive and play (after it downloads 800MB of updates, of course…)? I believe the PC game industry is killing itself by being the most complicated, untrusting, aggravating delivery system for games right now.

I have but one question.
Every single person who pirates games, can be lucky, that there are still many among us, who live by morals.
They believe – If a company releases a game, then you can either buy it or you don’t.
Pirating a game because you live in a 3rd world country, have no money, dislike the company or anything else, is not a justification for illegally downloading it.
So my question is:
What would you do, if everyone decided to pirate games?
Video game companies would go bankrupt, there would be no more games for us.
How would you feel if you spent years on something great, that you wish to publish, only to have it illegally downloaded by everyone else.
You don’t make any profit.

I just spent the last fifteen years of my life pumping over two hundred dollars plus a year into their industry, and look what it turned into. I just got my friend to buy Diablo 3. I got a copy of the game also, the retail box version. Played for around 900 hours. Just tried to log into the game a few days ago and lo and behold, my account is locked… Hmm, I paid 60.00 us dollars for them to tell me I would need to call their office to have my account unlocked. It’s flaged because they say I changed access patterns with my connection. See, now they are trying to sell games as a service not a real product you get to own anymore. I told blizzard when I do get around to calling their office. I am going to ask them to remove me from their system. I don’t even care about the account anymore. Btw, I don’t buy pc games anymore.

I think that the price is what really is downgrading the PC gaming industry. I bought a Gold Edition Age of Empires (3 disks!) for only $10-$15 at Office Depot a couple of years ago. I loved it! It was on sale but most games I see are about $25 which I usually won’t spend unless I really want it. I think if they lowered the price, the amount of extra buyers would for sure make up for however much they lowered the price… Also lots of kids are using the iPhone, iPad, etc. more than computers.

I agree, I have a collection of many games bought a long time a go, they were very cheap, most under 10. I wa surprised when I saw online a few years ago that games are not 20, not 30, but most of them are 60, and they’re shitty as fuck, lack any kind of substance and are… basically like macs. You buy the latest CoD/BF because all the cool gamers play it, and when it gets old (an year later lol) you buy its sequel for an ever higher price, then you buy THE DLCs, all 100 of them. You end up paying like 100$ for a shitty game that a cheapass old game can beat any day.
At the end of the day, when I wonder “why the fuck did I pirate 100 games and all my programs?” and remember what I wrote above, I know I made the right choice.

The reason games are $60 are because most of it goes to the retail store and only a small amount goes to the creators (maybe about $10) you did not make the right choice as you need to do a little more research before saying such bs

Thats not entirely accurate, there are more people that buy online now then they do from retail stores(For PC games), through Digital distributors. With Digital distributors, its even cheaper for the publisher to sell the game due to not needing to create a physical disc, packaging material, and shipping. On top of that, retailers tend to take more profits then Digital distributors.

Speaking of the profits, retailers do not take the majority of the profits from what you are suggesting, if you do your research, you would see retailers take about 20% from the sold games, the publishers make the majority of the profits, and even a larger profit when the game is sold through a digital distributor or directly from the publisher itself.

The price was raised by major pc publishers, likely due to both the publishers themselves and the stock holders driving the publishers for higher profits, and because of this it has become the pc setting trend out of greed for the green. The developers still get about $9, while the publisher rakes in the majority. With pc games being bought more online, and prices rising, publishers are making even larger profits.

The problem with prices rising is it means people are becoming more picky and buying less games so they can afford the games made by the major companies and/or highly rated games. This in turn hurts new companies, and it also increases piracy.

Also despite the price hike that will cause even higher piracy rates, I still don’t think pc gaming is going to collapse, fall, vanish, diminish, be killed, whatever word anyone would like to use, simply because the pc game market is both very large and still growing.

EA killed PC gaming not piracy. EA killed PC gaming a long time ago when it started dumbing down games like, Sim City society which was a flop, Spore, c&c, Madden, and the list goes on the countless games EA have either dumbed down or killed off.

Then we have internet activations which also has killed pc games and Steam. EA made it no secret to MS that they wanted one gaming platform which was rejected by MS.

That is odd that EA said that. They already have the power to do so without asking MS for their help. EA owns the Madden series, Bioware, and countless other developer groups that form the backbone of their company. All they would have to do is create a bunch of new games and make them for the xbox only. Want to play madden? you need an xbox. Want to play the hottest AD&D rpg? You need an xbox. Hell If I was in charge of MS I would simply start buying shares of EA and control the company. If the anti Monopoly rules were to come into effect no biggie there are ways around that.

Yeah right like a 15 year old can buy game after game for at least 50$.Or a college student can afford not only buying the games but also constantlly uprgading their software, without milking their parents.The only ones that can afford pc gaming are 30 year olds but the just don’t have enough time to play or just don’t have any interest in games any more.

Fake and BIAS!! If you go on the net now, you can see Max Payne 3(2012) out on XBOX, ready to be pirated. No less than 4 different releases for this game. The PC version isn’t even out yet. So… it’s funny how everyone always blames PC for pirating, and PC that, and PC this, while other parties are at risk too. Another thing, these games that are normally released long before they are set to, are all because of the companies that do it. All because they want to move gaming or rather maximize their sales on single platforms(PS3, XBOX). By moving more people over to those, they can increase their sales and lower their work by not having to port a game to PC. This is clear to see when game devs release DLC content weeks/months before the PC gets it. All in all, it’s just some fake bs to increase their cash gain.

Piracy does not damage the industry, if it does, then thousands of companies would have been out of business a long time ago. If you pirate a game, then the chances that you would have bought the game if you didn’t pirate it, is little to NONE. Therefore, they would never have made that money anyway, so there can’t be any LOSS OF PROFIT.
OH well, us PC goers are just going to keep getting picked on.

Yeah, they’re just jelous of us, just like the apple fanboys who buy 3000$ paperweights err I mean PCs. They’re jealous because we got a better bang for our buck and not just that, our cheap PCs are many times more powerful and cheaper when compared to their crap, and they have a lot more functionality.

“$60 are because most of it goes to the retail store and only a small amount goes to the creators (maybe about $10)”

Well that’s a load of BS in its self. Tell me the price of a game direct from manufacturer and tell me that it is not he same RRP as the store prices. Where you think their profits are going to, an online store? Don’t be ignorant.

WOW! this is from 2009 and I just found it. Good read still to this day btw.

Pc sales have been in decline since this was written. The comment about people going out to walmart or best – buy to get a new computer is sooo true. Too often I hear people say they did this and complain that skype doesnt run well or that the blueray drive doesnt seem to work right. I have to explain to them that buying a PC from those store is the equivalent of buying a used compact car and expecting new super-car performance. It just aint gonna happen. And more often than not they thing will die after the warranty is expired.

As for buying games I stay clear of any game that has Sony’s securom <–Just had to add that to my spellchecker as spelled right..hehe.. and anything that has Starforce on it. Pretty much anything other than steams custom drm or goo from Impulse is a no go for me. And I'm not alone with this. I have friends and co-workers that have stopped buying any games on the PC due to drm.

Ea with spore was a huge wake-up call to the gameing industry. People don't want that crap on their computers. Then again most people say they don't care. What I understand with that statement is this….#1 I enjoy playing simple games that are fun but i don't understand what drm is or why I should care. #2 I dont know enough about computers to understand why drm is bad for my PC.

Worse even with google, youtube, wiki, and any other online resource of info used for leaning most people dont even want to be bothered to learn. Give me one hour of your time and Ill have you thinking in a whole new way I tell people and still they refuse. It's like after the age of 20 or so people decide that the learning process is over and they would rather be spoon fed false security's from the cooperate world rather than deal with the fact that to understand something they must first learn about it.

i buy tonns of games and also download as a way to preview games then if they are good i go out and buy a copy i would never buy a game off steam i like like to have a box and a manual and a disk,i’m just one of those people who likes to have the box art etc.

the bottom line is if a game is good people will buy it and if its a bad game people will pirate it play it a few times and del it.if game makers put as much effort into making the games good as they do fighting piracy there would be less piracy and better games.

most games now days are very short and have no replay value and thats one of the reasons they get pirated and not bought.its the same thing with movies if a movie is good i will gladly buy it on blue ray.

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Is Piracy Killing the PC Gaming Industry ? I was recommended this website by my cousin. I am not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my problem. You’re incredible! Thanks! your article about Is Piracy Killing the PC Gaming Industry ? Best Regards Veronica Shane

I don’t believe piracy is killing the games industry, it is a fact and has already been stated, that piracy in the gaming industry has existed since we were loading games up with cassettes on the first home computers. Piracy did not kill anything off then, if it had then where would developers like Activision for example be today, certainly not the multi-billion international games company it is.

As someone who does pirate games for both the PC and Nintendo Wii, here is my own take on piracy, this is just a personal viewpoint and I cannot speak for others in a different situation.

I live in North China, I am British but moved here years ago with my wife. When I lived in the UK, I always paid for my games whatever platform they were running on. I had a good job, was well paid and so paying for games was not an issue for me in any way whatsoever.
Since moving here I have run into problems. First of all China is the pirate capital of the world. Walk down any high street in any major city here and all the stores that sell games be they for the PC or console are selling pirated games. They don’t try hiding the fact, they are on display for all to see and stores that sell consoles all chip said consoles in store.
When I arrived here I brought my UK bought Wii with me. I had no choice to put a mod chip in it if I wanted to continue buying games due to the fact that the games are NTSC here and won’t normally play in a PAL Wii.
When it came to buying PC and Wii games I quickly realised that it was a big problem. 90% of the games you would buy were extremely poor copies that either would not read due to being scratched badly or just badly burned. Very often the game you thought you had bought turned out to be a different game on the disc or sometimes not even a game at all, I once bought GTA IV and found Microsoft Office on the disc!!
So here is my dilemma living here. If I buy games on the high street, first of all the money is still not going to the developers as they are pirated and secondly they are usually unplayable or not what you thought.
Buying games in the form of a digital download is out of the question as all the main places like Steam and Direct2Drive recognise the fact my IP is on the Chinese mainland and will not allow me to do so. Using an open proxy to fool their service into thinking I am in the UK or USA is also out of the question as they are not safe for the purposes of using your credit card details and/or Paypal account, unless you want them emptied.
I could buy games in a physical format online and have them shipped to China, but this is also a big issue. the reason being that to do this would mean I spent 3 to 4 times the purchase price for a title having it shipped and then paying the import taxes, plus the fact that on the odd occasion I have had things mailed to me here, they never arrive or at least very rarely. This is because of the fact that I cannot input an address in Chinese characters and have to use pinyin, something that fails miserably upon arrival in China.
So, I am faced with two simple choices. Don’t play games again ever or download a pirate copy.
I cannot speak for anyone else but from my perspective not playing games ever again is out of the question so what would you do in my position?

Then on a side note there is one other fact that has arisen recently which stops me loosing any sleep at night. More and more these days , developers shaft the PC gamer with poorly coded games and buggy ports which NEVER get fixed. Look at GTA IV, what a complete and utter F@@k up that turned out to be. Even people with the most powerful computers ran into performance issues that hampered gameplay and they have still not been fixed properly to this day. Once Rockstar had taken the profits from the sale they closed the door on GTA IV for the PC bar a handful of pointless patches that never really addressed the main issues people were having. Made feeble excuses as to the reasons for the problems, like stating the game had been design “Future Proof” and was mean to be played on PC’s that, ahm, hadn’t quite been invented yet!!
This is a growing trend with many developers and whenever I play a game that is that buggy and does not get fixed, annoyed as I may be I cannot help but smile and get a warm tingly feeling when I think that I did not line the pockets of some miserable, greedy corporate weasel.

So that is my take on game piracy. Agree or disagree with my train of thought, I really do not care much. No one will ever make me feel guilty nor will I loose any sleep over piracy, unless of course its because I am playing a pirated game till the early hours 😉

You are very wrong and ill informed. If you think about it, Piracy has always existed since the early days of gaming, and is just as bad on the consoles. The main reason that pc gaming is in decline is because of hardware, Laptops, and retailers like PCworld. Usually when the average consumer needs a new computer they will go to the nearest reailer to buy their Desktop/Laptop. What they don’t know is that retailers ship PC’s with very poor hardware to keep costs down and profits up. Unlike the old days, PC games today have very high hardware requirements to be playable the way that a developer intended a game to be. So many find that their PC’s simply are just unable to meet these hardware requirements, or have a very poor experience because they played a game on low/medium settings with a laggy framerate. Therefore they do not buy games for their PC’s and instead go the console route.

the companies think of us like mindless consumers,like why buy a new cod game a year after the previous one for 60 dollars whille the game engine is the same,no update on graphics animation,nor textures,only a few new weapons…they brought it to their selves,they dont respect us we dont respect them

Computer games have been pirated since their very first conception back in the days of ZX Spectrums, BBC Micros and Commodore 64s. People would take a cassette, as was the main format in those days and use a simple tape 2 tape system and copy them.

I will openly admit I play pirated PC games, I never buy them anymore. Why do I do it you ask? Here are my reasons.

I live in China now, I moved here a few years ago with my wife as she wanted to return home.

Before this, I always paid for my games, I never pirated anything, so what changed?

The simple fact for me is this, In China it is completely impossible to find genuine PC games in any stores, or console games for that matter.

China is rife with pirated games and DVD’s which are openly sold both in store and on the streets. My only option for purchasing genuine games is to turn to the internet and order them from overseas. Steam and other direct download options are out of the question as for one, most of them are blocked in China due to the national firewall, and furthermore many do not allow you to go through the actual purchase as they recognise your IP as being in mainland China and do not let you proceed.

As for purchasing a boxed version from overseas, the cost is just far too much, not only do I have to pay for the game and tax, but I then have to pay significant shipping costs and import taxes putting the cost of a game up as much as 80 or 90 pounds!!!

Then there is the fact that the postal service in China sucks and unless the address is in Chinese characters I am likely never to see it arrive.

Going back to the pirated games in the stores, they are often poorly copied to disc and dont read in the drive, or quite often the DVD in the box has the wrong game on it.

I therefore fall back to downloading pirate games from the internet as long as I am here. Its time consuming, leaves me prone to viruses and the pirate copies are often buggy but for me its either that or no games whatsoever.

People out there can say what they want, I’m pretty sure most will still say I shouldnt do it but your not going to change my mind. I have no way to support the gaming industry whilst I live here and paying 3 times the normal price for a game is NOT an option.

Lastly, it has to be said that many of the games I have been playing have been released in a shameful state and never really had such terrible bugs fixed. Look at GTA IV, the entire thing was bodged from day one on the PC and has never been fixed.

If games companies are going to release thing in such a rubbishy state and not fix them it makes me feel a whole lot better about the fact I never parted with any cash.

So there you have it! Your entitled to your opinion and can agree or disagree but you will never change my mind and thats that.

pc gaming is bigger than ever it’s coming to the time where consoles are taking idea’s from the pc’s pircy is a very small percentage considering on the amount of ppl that still play faily

Steam for instence is brillant downloading games and taking them round my mates to download and play

Mmo’s something consoles just dont have yet or the right amount of buttons to pull off

RTS’s dont sell at all on the consoles

pircy everyones proberly done it and deleted the game after they got half way though it EA sees it as demo’ing and there sales have gone up from pircy theres still people that are willing to buy for the mp option

pc gaming is growing it’s not dieing at all look at more info before saying anything.

i could build a pc for £200 i can buy a console for £190+ and yet my £200 pc is more like a swiss army knife millions of uses and the consoles just one the tech needed to run the “good” pc games are easy cod4/hl2/l4d/sims my £20 9500gt runs them all perfectly on 60+ fps

i buy games all the time and the only reason console gaming is doing better is because it’s easyer.

I’ve always enjoyed gaming as a hobby and have been building my pc game collection for years. I actually like having the original disk in it’s packaging with the nicely printed games manual. Lately, however, I’ve been sorely tempted by illegal and cracked pc games – nothing to do with the cost, though. The anti-piracy security has been getting more and more inconvenient and now we’re at the point where you can hardly find a decent game that will install without an internet connection and some fancy online downloader like Steam (which doesn’t work half the time due to bandwidth restrictions in many countries). As I don’t have an internet connection at home (I only use internet in the office) this means buying legal games is no longer an option for me. Others I’ve spoken to also agree that with all the anti-piracy security (which obviously isn’t having any effect on internet pirates) it is actually far less hassle to install a cracked copy of a game rather than a legal one. In our country, internet fees are so high that downloading a cracked game usually works out far more expensive than buying a legal version in a store, yet everyone is doing it for the abovementioned reasons.

Who is killing the pc game industry? No one other than the pc game industry itself. Make user-friendly ‘installation’ games and try making purchased games a better deal (provide a second disk with modding tools, for example). If a purchased game is more convenient and has something extra, serious gamers will buy it. Making a legal version more complex and irritating to install than an illegal version is just plain foolish.

There will always be a big market for good pc games – face it, consoles are very limited (and useless for strategy games unless someone thinks to add a mouse and keyboard for consoles). They may be cheaper to produce but also remember pc games have a much longer life span due to the active modding community and the ‘expansion pack’ industry. Game company marketing executives just need to start thinking a little more strategically themselves and stop being obtuse and short-sighted.

I believe that piracy will ultimatly kill PC Gaming. Just the other day I read about Spore having been illegally downloaded 1.7million times. I would say thats a huge amount of lost revenue, sure EA have bags of cash but imagine how demoralising that must be for the developers who have worked hard to create entertainment for gamers. That in itself would be enough to make them turn round and say “you know what, screw the pc market lets concentrate on consoles”. As for the cost of PC’s, I dont go for that being the main pc gaming killer. I priced up a mid range PC for £450, and that was with a blu-ray drive, Nvidia 9800GT, 2GB RAM and an Intel C2D 2.4Ghz processor. Remove the blu-ray drive and its £60 cheaper already and that spec system will wipe the floor with a PS3 not to mention be more versatile. PC games are also cheaper than consoles by a big margin. And for someone to moan that they use pirated games because of the like of securom et all.. is rubbish. I have never, ever had an issue with any of the anti-piracy measures developers use when installing a game on my system or whilst playing. . PC game piracy needs to be stopped before it destroys PC gaming!! There is no defence for it at all!!

To me personally I think its somewhat everyones fault (or something like that) PC developers arnt cracking down on pirates by taking their IP adress’s or something or saying “You are to attend this court or you will go to jail for (Insert number here) Years”
Pirates steal games for these reasons
1: They dont have money
2: Its simple and easy to download from the internet
3: The game is on another console not yet on the pc and since they dont have it they have a urge to attempt to try to play it on the pc
4: look at 2
5: (Incorrectly for myself actually) I personally think about it and as default normally never steal games unless they cant be bought anywhere and the company shut down. But most people dont think about it and just say Oh a new game me is going to download it now

all I have to say is blah blah wait till xmas for pirates and ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING GAME DEVELOPERS

I care a whole lot….I support the develpers because I want more Japanese games to be localised in english…..I only pirate a game if it hasn’t been localised in english yet. I can get it with an english patch if I pirate it. Then when it becomes available for preorder I’m all over it…..If I don’t like it I don’t buy it. There’s nothing better than ripping through the shrinkwrap of a brand new sealed physical copy and that new smell is just awesome.

PC games can be made secure/less pirated. Steam, as you said, is the perfect example. Steam also allows you to buy games in the store or online. Great way to give your consumers a choice!!

I do disagree with your comment about buying games causing you to play them all the way through to get your money worth. If you buy a game that is not worth playing, you won’t play it much. Example, Quake Wars. It is interesting and alright, but over all not a great game. I bought it, and never really play it. A friend and I both heard good to okay things about it so we got it together to play online together and with others.

Consoles are easier for the average person. However, pirating is not as easy as using a console. Pirating games is also not as easy as installing a purchased game on your PC.

PC gaming is better is so many ways. Look at any strategy or FPS game. A controller is not the best way to aim a gun or command an army. End or that talk 😛
I can see how some people could prefer the controller, it just requires too much practise to get it right. A mouse it aim and shoot. Also requires skill, but the granularity of aiming with a mouse is easier than an analog stick.

I have purchased more games this year than ever before in my life. I don’t own a seventh generation console. (I have an SNES, N64 and GameCube)

PC gaming is the way to do online. Who wants to chat in a game by typing on a controller??
Consoles could be better. They could become more like a PC and take over the market. I would be okay with that, but I will always have a PC anyway. Why not build it so it is good for games and enjoy it!

– Consoles need games like WoW to boost their popularity with PC games.
– Consoles need to accept keyboard an mouse or something like the Wiimote.
– Consoles need to stop charging for accessories like a headset. Include it, more people will have it, and it will make things better for everyone. Hell, bundle it and charge $10 more and let people choose if they want that bundle.
– Stop bundling games with the console, or make it so you can pick the games to be included (saw this with PSP recently)

My closing:
I like the new consoles, but I can’t justify buying one when I have a great PC sitting right here that can do everything a console can do and so much more. I would buy a Wii if there were more games I really wanted for it, or if it was on sale and they had it in stock. But that’s all because the Wii is not your typical console, and they really should be awarded for doing something great.

You mean the Pee! I wish Nintendo had chosen to use the name Revolution. The name Wii U is even more of a throw off for most people. No other system names their machine the X U or the PS U!

Problem with the Pee I mean the Wii is that it’s a FORCED gimmick machine for those who have no life which most forum users seem to be the case but for anybody who has slight hope know better then to be fooled.

Not to mention the name itself is NOT creative nor funny unless one wishes to make fun of it! Nintendo had set themselves to be a laughing stock in abandoning their core players who grew up with challenging games like Super Mario World/Yoshi’s Island and making it a *family* machine that grandma can play!

If Sony were to name their next machine the PS U to be creative they’d be laughed out of E3! Sony fans may be very *vocal* but they are not stupid and know when stupid ideas happen and I can guarantee there would be such as HUGE backlash that Sony would either be divided up or scrap the PS U.

However sadly it seems most video games these days are stupid party type games or hack n slash games that are ALMOST constant boss fights. Twilight Princess except for the beginning wounded up being a nearly constant boss fight to the point you could barely tell where one dungeon ended and the other beganed.

Wind Waker had MUCH better pacing between fight scenes.

And you’ll probably retort saying that Sony ripped off Nintendo first but every company is going to rip off of another company most of the time it’s either unintentional/they want to improve upon it or they wouldn’t invest into *ripping* in the first place.

In Nintendo’s defense however
Nintendo has always had gimmicks for their machine but it’s not until the Pee I mean Wii that the system itself became the gimmick!

In fact the NES even had the Gyro Mate add on for a stupid game but it was totally an option to have it or not depending if you are a major collector that HAS to have everything NES related. The console wouldn’t stop working if you choose not to use Gyro Mate or the Light Gun.

I imagine that people find it easier to pirate PC games because it is an all in one resource. You have the internet to find what you need, torrent sites to download the content itself and tutorials to get it the games up and running. You never have to leave your seat.

Publishers have tried all sorts to defeat the pirate and that has a knock on effect to the genuine user. I have avoided games that have Starforce or maybe wont let you install where Daemon is installed for example. I detest piracy but I equally detest being told I cannot run certain apps legitimately.

I tend to stick to online clan gaming where CD keys mean that most of the players are using original and properly bought games. I guess piracy is worse on single player.

I seriously cannot believe you consider piracy is not an issue. You have mentioned a ‘shattering’ statistic about gaming industry growth. Accepted. For a normal guy like me, 17 Billion is like unimaginable. But that is the gaming industry on the whole. Keep in mind that when this shattering growth is broken down into individual companies and compared to their annual growth predictions, you will get a different picture.

Even then, lets consider that the gaming industry is making huge profits. Does that make you or anyone eligible to just rip-off a game free of cost? Think about it. Wanting have a cake, eat it too and not pay a penny is not cool.

As I commented earlier, reducing the prices of games will be welcomed with much cheer and joy by one and all and will expand the gaming market and significantly reduce piracy.

@rusty: Since you felt compelled, I feel compelled too, and therefore, I will differ on that too broad a view of yours. A console is not a PC and can never be, because if that happens, there will be no difference in the prices.

A PC is made for several other purposes including gaming. BTW, have you tried playing a strategy or a FPS game on a console?? 🙂

I felt compelled to chime in here as this is a pretty narrow view of things.
First: Game Consoles provide a package that is tested, verified and just works. You never have to wonder if that new printer driver somehow is interfering with your video performance.

Second: Game consoles are, in reality, computers. Therefore you can purchase a screaming console for a fraction of the price of an equivalent pc.

Third: The gaming industry is growing at a rate that is absolutely mind-boggling: over 40 percent growth for 2007 to a “record-shattering” $17.94 billion. What, exactly, indicates any loss of growth or revenue?

A game box IS a pc, its just a special purpose model. Digital cameras did not kill photography and elite consumers still use film for the capabilities that digital cameras don’t provide. Suggesting piracy is killing pc gaming is like suggesting internet video is killing tv.

I totally agree. Personally, I think the P2P networks (torrents) are the main cause of piracy.

If one visits any torrent portal and does a search for games, one can find all that latest games for every platform out there. Given the advent of broadband, most people would not think twice downloading a pirated game off the torrent network. This stand true to other content like Movies, Music, Software etc.

The only way this piracy trouble can be controlled is either:

A. Reduce the prices of games (subsidize it with in game ads or some other way). Reduced prizes will definitely boost sales.

B. Try to find a super secure way of encrypting game CDs/DVDs. This is always futile, but it might atleast help reducing the number of people pirating games.

Its definitely disheartening for the game developers to see all their hardwork get into pirates hands. Without a decent profit, nobody can invest in further R&D for new games which are better in all ways.

Ultimately it is us, the end user, who has the ultimate power to change the scenario. Just like how we prefer a decent restaurant even though food at some dingy road stall will be cheap, same way we should consider paying for stuff that we enjoy.

— ” I think people have learned when they install stuff on their PC it seems to go slower.. (I for one know I don’t play any games, even though my system is excellent, just simply because I feel it bogs down my system sometimes and it’s a waste of space usually) ” —

Go to my site (click my name) and read how to solve this issue in the Install XP section. I have many games installed (paid for, yes) and still no problem.

About the Store part: Yes, because people need to get outside to enjoy the light of the Daystar as well, and complain about the real life graphics. 😛 They’ll see the Game store and enter it, look around for a game and then don’t buy it. Really, it happens. Sometimes it’s easier this way because you can actually touch the box.

IP Tracking on Torrents… this is something we, luckily, don’t have in the Netherlands. Downloading is legal here if, and only if, it’s for private use and not resale or rent or whatsoever. Uploading is illegal here though. I gather you’re from the USA… where things are a bit more strict than here. Perhaps you should find out if Usenet is a better solution for you?! That’s not really P2P. 😉

Hey, just to give you a heads up.. I just looked up GTA3 and I noticed it arrived Oct 22, 2001 on the PS2 and May 22, 2002 on the PC. Correct me if I’m wrong (I didn’t check the other releases just the GTA3)

Eitherway, WoW has a HUGE market.. billions of people – I’m sure those billions of people used to be big/semi-big PC gamers who devote all their time to just a simple monthly fee which ends up being cheaper than buying new games. Which, not to mention for some reason WoW players seem to devote their entire life to JUST WoW..

@Carel – Lately, they’ve been cracking down on torrents (at least on my IP) and I’ve gotten numerous emails about download various things over torrents. I’m not sure if they’re going to try and attack anyone (if they can) and sue, but I hope it doesn’t turn out to be like that. Also: “We are in the stores to actually buy a copy while others just go to the stores to see which game they can download because the box looks interesting to them.” do people SERIOUSLY do this?? I’ve never even pondered about wasting my time in a store to look at a box that I think looks interesting, usually I’ll see a review or some game play and download it if it interests me, the box NEVER sells a game for me – ever.

I think people have learned when they install stuff on their PC it seems to go slower.. (I for one know I don’t play any games, even though my system is excellent, just simply because I feel it bogs down my system sometimes and it’s a waste of space usually)

My Xbox 360 almost never freezes, and when it does (rarely ever) it can restart and be back to the same point very fast.

Oh yeah, let’s NOT forget – YOU CAN RENT CONSOLE GAMES AND NOT PC GAMES.

How many rental stores are out there? A LOT, and I don’t think any of them at all carry PC games, that’s gotta be a big chunk. If I could possibly RENT my PC games that would be a different story.

I hate being forced to buy something with just a review or two along with some pictures. I want to play it, I download it and in all honesty I haven’t bought a new PC game since The Sims 2. NOR have I downloaded any games, because there simply aren’t any that interest me that AREN’T already on a console.

Right but wrong as well. There’s a huge uprising in the world of Bit Torrents and Newsgroups when it comes to downloading Console DVD’s. It’s very simple to download and burn an illegal copy for a console, almost as easy as for the PC. Now the console could be the NDS or a PS3… it’s so easy.

Now what am I trying to say?: It’s not that reason that the companies are switching over to consoles. It’s about the costs that are involved for the companies that create games. It’s cheaper to release for consoles than for PC’s. (well-known fact)

Now, what should happen to keep games fun and stop piracy? Think World of Warcraft… Buy an account and login each time you want to play. This should get the Companies to actually work on good products (EA Games isn’t really doing a great job) and it could work on any system. Yes, even if it’s a single player game. Times are changing and so should systems.

Now I am a gamer as well and I live by the saying: ‘A Game a day keeps the Daystar Away!’ And I hate to see that such solutions take place… but lately it’s quite a pain in the butt. We are in the stores to actually buy a copy while others just go to the stores to see which game they can download because the box looks interesting to them.

So either ban Torrent and Newsgroup Sites completely from the internet, or we have to live with the fact that things are changing for the worse. We can say many things about this subject.. I guess I just did.. hehehe.

I just want to point out that it is not as easy as you think to pirate Console Games, there are several types of xbox, the easiest to crack still require you to open up the box access the dvd board and jtag dump the firmware (not an easy task, unlike torrenting a pc game). The hardest ones (the recent elites and the new slim style ones) require you to cut and resolder your dvd drives controller board.

In Conclusion it’s much much harder to pirate on the consoles and therefore much more attractive to major publishers and game dev companies.

The only PC games my husband and I really do are DnD based or the Sims/Sim City ones, unless they’re ones for our kids.
I prefer them on a console system for the simple fact that I can take the game itself anywhere, and play anywhere that has that console. I can’t do the same with a PC-game.
That, and with the add-ons that some game makers are putting onto the CD-roms for the games, it’s making people leery of using them, like EA/Maxis putting SecuRom onto their games, which, in some cases (a lot actually), the loss of the ability to use their CD/DVD burners. It’s safer to Torrent a copy of the game than to actually install it through a CD because of that.

I don’t think it’s piracy that’s killing PC gaming. It’s Consoles and the fact that it’s cheaper to get a console then build a gaming machine plus the new console systems like xbox 360 and PS3 can handle games that use to only find on PC.

I think you hit the nail on the head with your last point. People are too lazy and don’t have time to deal with upgrading their system and hardware regularly to stay up to speed with new PC games. Like you said, it’s just so much easier to put the game in the console and go.

I prefer a controller to a keyboard/mouse, but that’s just my personal preference.

only problem is that some of us do like to upgrade our rigs.. and the xbox is 7 years old!!! and the PS3 isnt far ahead. its obsolete compared to most gamers PC’s.. console gaming is holding back the gaming industry BIG TIME because developers cant go to far cause everything still has to run on a 7 year old system.. its sad and lame if you ask me. consoles are grinding progress to a screeching halt and I hate it!

Not to mention the fact that if you built a system as good as a ps3 when the ps3 came out then there is no need to upgrade it…. cause the ps3 is still the newest console so I fail to see your logic here.